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24 Craigslist Tips, Tricks, and Resources

Yesterday The Consumerist pointed to a couple of Curbly posts about how to buy stuff on Craigslist [one, two]. These articles have some good tips, but I think there’s more to say.

My Craigslist experience

Cragislist is one of the seven wonders of the internet. You can use it to find a job, buy a car, get a date for Saturday night, and sell that old couch. The site is free to use for almost everything. It’s community-policed, which means spam is taken down as users flag it. Kris and I made extensive use of Craigslist when we bought our new house. Over the past three years we’ve purchased:

67″ x 36″ antique mirror with beveled edge: $45

Another mirror, battered but okay: $20 and a long wait in traffic

Solid cherry Dania shaker desk: $175 and buyer’s remorse

A housekeeper to perform a final, thorough cleaning when we moved out of our previous house: $75

Every year I list our neighborhood garage sale on Craigslist. When our business needed to hire a truck driver, I listed the job on Craigslist. I use it to keep tabs on community activities and events.

Here’s an example of an actual Craigslist transaction: For two months, Kris watched for a mattress and bed frame. Beds came and went, but never exactly what she wanted. One afternoon her ideal bed finally appeared. She contacted the seller immediately and arranged for us to pick up the bed, which we did that night. I borrowed the van from work, we grabbed some cash from the ATM, and we drove to the seller’s house. We inspected the bed, and it met with our approval. The seller was friendly — he helped us load the bed into the van. We chatted a little. And then we were on our way. During this transaction, we did several things to make things smoother.

General tips for using Craigslist

Spend some time learning the site. Familiarize yourself with the interface (it’s fairly straight-forward). Pick a category to watch for a week so that you can get a feel for how things work.

It’s cool that you can subscribe to your favorite categories. This can get overwhelming, though. Do you really want to sift through a thousand lame free items every day? Of course not. But you might be keen on learning about every free piano that comes along, for example. Or maybe you want to see every job posting searching for a writer. You can subscribe to a feed of any Craigslist search. This is amazingly powerful. (It’s also a dangerous time-sink.)

Always be polite. People are grateful to deal with kind, helpful strangers. When a woman came to take 500 square feet of free sod we’d dug from our lawn, I spent an hour in the rain helping to load her trailer. Though the sod had been listed as free, she sent me $50 in restaurant gift certificates to thank me for helping her.

Don’t feel pressured. If you drive out to the seller’s location and find that the item is not as described, or that you’ve changed your mind, don’t feel obligated to buy. If a buyer arrives and tries to change the terms of the deal, call it off.

Tips for buying on Craigslist

The most important thing to remember when looking for things on Craigslist is that you must be both patient and impulsive. This may seem like a paradox, but it’s true. First, you must know what it is you want. And then you must be patient, waiting for that thing to be listed. When you finally see the item available, send e-mail immediately or you may lose your chance. (An e-mail expressing interest is not a commitment to buy, but it puts you at the head of the line in most sellers’ minds.)

Be ready to purchase the item when you meet the seller. If you drive to look at a desk, be ready to pay for it and to haul it away. Sellers generally want to get rid of their stuff now. We’ve been able to buy stuff even when we weren’t the first to arrive with cash, but were the first to arrive with cash and a van.

Some people sell unwanted gift cards, generally for about 80-90% of their face value. For example, if you know that you’re making a trip to the hardware store for a home improvement project, check Craigslist first to see if there aren’t any gift cards that you might be able to use. Important: verify the balance on the gift card before purchasing it. Many cards contain printed instructions on how to verify the balance, but you might want to meet the seller at the store.

Negotiate. Offer the seller less than the asking price, especially if the listing is old. (This won’t work for a brand-new listing.)

Use cash and exact change when possible. Some sellers will take a check or give you change, but don’t count on it. Arrange the form of payment before you meet the seller.

Tips for selling on Craigslist

Offer detailed descriptions. Provide essential information. Give the size, the color, the style, or any other relevant information a buyer might need to make a decision.

Be honest. You’re not going to fool anyone. If you say something is “like new” and a potential buyer shows up to discover it’s well-worn, you’re not going to make the sale and you’re going to have a cranky customer on your hands. Tell the truth.

You don’t need to post a photograph, but you’re going be more successful with certain items if you do. I spent two months searching for the perfect desk on Craigslist. There was a strange disconnect between the text people used to describe their desks and the actual desk as shown in a picture. I wasn’t about to bite on a post that didn’t include an image. But if you’re posting an ad for a used Nintendo Wii game, a photo isn’t required.

Ask a reasonable price. If you’re not sure what’s reasonable, watch Craigslist for a week or two to see what similar items fetch. If you price your item too low you’ll sell it but you will have left money on the table. If you price your item too high you’ll never get a response.

You will get many responses, but few will follow through. That’s just how Craigslist works. Don’t let it bother you. Be grateful for the few that do follow through.

Don’t let buyers talk you into alternate forms of payment. If you’re asking $250, don’t accept a trade for something you don’t need. I’ve made this mistake twice, and one time it really bit me. (I traded for a computer that didn’t work — long, stupid story.)

Take down your ad once you’ve sold the item.

From my experience, collectibles do poorly on Craigslist. It’s the wrong audience. I watch for comic books because I’m a collector. People have unrealistic expectations of what comics are worth and what the demand for them is. I would never try to sell comics on Craigslist. That’s what eBay is for.

Other Craigslist resources

Here are additional resources to help you get the most out of Craigslist:

Listpic is an alternate interface for Craigslist, one that emphasizes photos. It offers a more visual way to explore the site.

An old college friend and I were moving into a new apartment, and he was new to the city, and I had not much furniture. I was checking Craigslist everyday, when one day we spot this ad for a townhome that needs to get rid of all of its furniture. Free! They just didn’ want to move it.

We go there, and its all stuff that’s 1 year old from IKEA, a pretty nice furniture store. I tell the owner, basically “DIBS” and started flaggin what we would take. We got girlfriends to leave work with their cars, plus ours.

Get rich slowly by buying stolen items on Craigslist. Hmmmm, not what I’ve come to expect from this site. Me thinks you should return said stolen items to any Borders. How is buying something that you know to be stolen the right thing to do? Just my opinion, you do what you feel is right.

Ouch. Good point. All I can offer are rationalizations: this occurred three years ago; I have no idea which Borders the shelves were taken from; and I no longer have the shelves. And, and, and I didn’t know they’d been stolen til we already loaded them in the van. (The women who sold them to us were grousing about how much they hated to work for Borders.) None of this excuses this, of course. It’s all just rationalizations.

I would like to add something to the above. If you are listing something on Craigslist, check your email at least once a day and RESPOND to people who write to you.

I was trying to adopt two dwarf hamsters. I wrote to everyone who listed them in my area. A week later when I had heard from no one, I bought two at the pet store. Two days after that (a total of NINE DAYS after I responded to the ad) someone finally wrote back, I had to tell them I’d already gotten some somewhere else.

24 hours is the longest you should go without responding to an ad you place. If you will take longer to respond, indicate that in the ad.

Get Rich Slowly has 24 tips, tricks, and resources for using Craigslist, described as “one of the seven wonders of the internet”(s). The site is not entirely free anymore, but used to be. Most parts still are, though…….

I love craigslist, though they really, really, really (really) need to beat down the spammers. People include “keywords” which have nothing to do with their sale. Guess what, guys, the dude looking for the Acura could care less about you selling your Minivan that you included every car make in the ad–and your ad now has a much more likely chance of being flagged down (I religiously flag those).
Y
ou can quickly separate the clueless from the motivated, which is nice. When you see two identical items priced more than 300% apart–often, with the better condition item cheaper–it’s fun.

If you’re really looking for a bargain, be ready to act. And by that I mean have your “bargain” cash in hand, and be ready to get in your car as soon as you hear from the seller, and even insist on going ASAP. My experience with craigslist sellers is that they aren’t much interested in worrying about who’s “in line” for an item, they just want it gone. So if you’re looking for a car that typically sells for $5000 and someone posts an ad for that machine for $3000 because taxes are due or an emergency has come up, go! Now!

(By “bargain” cash I mean an amount that covers your top “I don’t even need to think about this, that’s a deal” price. If you’re looking for a $5000 car and they typically sell for that, and there are a number generally available, obviously there’s not much pressure to act. But if you’re willing to wait for the aforementioned $3000 bargain listing, you need to be ready to act when it comes up–that guy is going to sell it very quickly, and his interest in hearing about your loan app is slender indeed.)

[...] Get Rich Slowly has come up with a big honking post on Craigslist tips, tricks and resources. My experiences have mirrored his and I have to say I love Craigslist despite the scary stories you hear about it once in a while. J.D. has been a long time blogger for a while, maintaining a bunch of other sites besides this one. [...]

[...] 24 Craigslist Tips, Tricks, and Resources Cragislist is one of the seven wonders of the internet. You can use it to find a job, buy a car, get a date for Saturday night, and sell that old couch. (tags: shopping money) [...]

I’ve sold lots of stuff on CL and love the medium. The biggest mistake I have seen is people trying to list items for more than the market wants to accomodate, because the seller is trying to make up costs for the item for whatever reason. No matter how much you paid for something (especially electronics and computers that depreciated quickly with new technologies), you aren’t going to get near what you paid for simply because if it is too close to new price, people would buy it new.

I also agree with checking emails daily. One of the most successful things I’ve done is to constantly communicate. If I have a potential sale, I inform everyone else that I do and will email/call regardless of if I sell the item. People respond well to it. In fact, many have asked if I had other items for sale that I hadn’t posted and end up buying the items.

I’m also straight forward with people. I inform them that I could go back and forth between potential buyers to get higher prices, but I do not because if I wanted a higher price I would have listed it at the price.

I normally mass email all the buyers bcc’ing each, stating that whoever arrives first gets the item. Just think of yourself, people are going to respond better if they know they are going to be treated fairly in a sale.

I agree with your tips – great job!
I have a free Google Map at my site http://www.aMillionPlaces.com that will help people see where each CL site is in the U.S.
I also have some reports that will help people identify and compare the demographics between the various urban areas covered by each Craigslist site.

I’ve bought a few things on CL, including a low-miled vehicle (98 Jeep GC 5.9). I think as with buying anything used, know what you’re buying beforehand. Do some research on the sellers price to see if it’s reasonable in your area, if the price seems too low for something that’s in a more valuable state it’s MIGHT be shady. Use your better judgment and not the temptation of the bargain.

I’ve found in our experience in selling a vehicle. We get tons of calls and everyone is interested and then nobody shows up! They are calling us offering us all kinds of deals and cash and then nothing. Anyone know how to overcome this? We’re really good honest people, are truck is in great shape, the photos show it and we have it listed below blue book for a quick sale and still no takers? I’m open to anyone with help and suggestions to e-mail me. I’m puzzled, I’ve run adds before and never had this happen!

The major problem with buying things off of Craigslist is that you never know if they are stolen property or not. I just had a musical instrument that was stolen from me five years ago pop up on Craigslist in a for sale listing. I called the cops, the cops met with the person who had bought the item (it had already been sold by that time) and confiscated the instrument once they matched the serial numbers. That person was out the $500 that he paid the person who put up the listing. If you trade in goods that turn out to be stolen, you lose any money you’ve put up plus you might have criminal charges/small claims court pressed against you besides.

I agree that it’s important to reply to all of the emails you get from craigslist. I got tired of the email-tag and haggling over prices, so I put up a website help order the transaction and let people build up a persistent trading reputation: squaresandwich.com

Another great tip is making your ad look better. CL’s old style leaves much to be desired. There are a few sites out there that let you make nice looking ads. I use a free one, http://www.slipdex.com. Allows photo upload, have dozens of templates, ad performance tracking, all free, no ads on your ads! haha

I just purchased a NEW DELL VOSTROS w/ a monitor in the box for below the asking price. I recommend to everyone to always negotiate a lower asking price for even NEW items. Sometimes the price the seller is asking for might be resonable but because not many people inquired on that item during the time the post was up and the time you inquired, you might get a steal, like me. Just trust your buyers instinct.

Half the folks on CL have no clue what the item they’re selling is worth, and ask for way too much. EG: selling a CRT monitor for $40 when folks are giving them away for free.

For electronics…never buy from anyone who can’t boot up and prove that the item they’re selling works. Some folks will say “it worked when I last used it, but XYZ messed up and I can’t get it to work, but if you replace XYZ it will work fine.” Don’t trust them. Others will say “well, I don’t have the AC adapter to get it to power up, but other than that it works fine.” Maybe they’re not lying, but don’t chance it.

Only buy things you can show up, inspect, and see in operation. If the seller is hesitant to let you see the item in action, then that’s a huge red flag.

Also beware of folks who use the words “like new” and/or “GREAT” a lot. They will say “looks great, like new, really nice!”, but won’t give more details about the item. These folks are clueless about what they’re selling, and you’ll waste too much time playing email tennis to interrogate details out of them just to find out it’s not what you want.

But, yeah, some of the best stuff I got from CL was from the free section. One person gave me a whole lot of collectible Star Trek memoribilia.

You should also hang out in the regular sections and keep an eye out for free things. Another person was giving away a free copy of Sun Solaris OS. He didn’t post it in the free section, because folks responding there would just email him asking a lot of dumb questions (IE: if you have to ask what it is, then you’re not the one he wants to give it to). He posted it in the computer section, and nobody noticed except me. I read his ad and noticed he was giving it away free. I contacted him, got it, and it works perfectly for an old SUN machine I have.

One other time, I was scoping out the computer section and just typed in the search word “free”. Turns out this guy was cleaning out his storage shed of old PC hardware. I picked up several older laptops and other accessories…all for free. Again, he didn’t want to post it on the regular free section, because he wanted to give it to someone who would actually use it and appreciate it, not just hock it at a garage sale for $5.

I personally have given away several older computers in the free section…working computers, like P3′s and P4′s. I collected some to do BOINC science project crunching, but when I moved I didn’t want to take them with me. So, I posted them for free. Got rid of them that night to a guy who was very grateful to get them, and already had a project he was going to do with them in mind.

Selling tip: use a bit of html (but not too much). I tell our users to create an ad on our site first and then drop the eFlyer code into a new Craiglist ad. Voila… your ad looks very professional. Here is a how-to I created on the process: http://blog.marketpad.com/580/what-on-earth-is-an-eflyer/

My wife is the “Craiglist Queen” on the BUY side… helping us track down furniture, appliances, even a nice Subaru Outback for a very affordable price.

On the SELLING side, my teenaged son and I did very well by using Craiglist to sell our services repairing window screens and screen doors.

On my blog at Shoestring101 (dot com) we detail the journey of starting with an investment of $62.66, using part-time effort (I am divorced and get my 14-year old three weekends a month), we used Craigslist and a few other cheap or free advertising methods to net $1195.33 profit in one month.

Not getting rich quick, but a very nice side income for part time effort. Our little experiment has now grown into a full time business. Craigslist has MY vote for a good way to test out a business without a large investment.

Thanks for this post! There are resources here I was not aware of. I’ll make sure to send others to this page.

OK so we (wife and I) have used CL for years now. Ater we bought our little house on the river we decided to furnish it entirely by purchasing all the things we needed on CL. It took a few months but all furniture, appliances, special decorating items came from CL. We saved thousands of dollars, literally, and have had so many people comment on how cute it turned out. The items we bought were nearly new and at a fraction of the cost of buying new at a retail store. Plus we found a “third car” for the house on CL. Needless to say we are delighted that CL is there to use free of charge and is the most user friendly website in the net,

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